Tennessee tribulations

First stop on the "Big Trip" was Tennessee. We shipped off to Knoxville, and in just a few hours, we were well into our fist state change of the trip. The campground was on a nice little lake nestled into the mountains: a perfect place to spend a relaxing weekend. 

We really took the relaxing seriously this weekend. We didn't fire up the ol' hotspot once (which will be important later). Instead of sitting on our computers working, we enjoyed walking around the campground, sitting by the water, and hiking to some local waterfalls. Since this was our first trip with our new toy (we got a drone!), here's some footage of the campground:

The waterfall hike was quite interesting. It was listed on the map as "nearby," but they didn't mention that the walk would be on real roads, through neighborhoods, and a few backwoods front yards — with plenty of "no trespassing" signs. While the walk was an experience, the waterfall turned out to be tons of fun. It was deep back in the woods and had a nice stream that cut through the rocks. We took plenty of good pictures.

The rest of the weekend was filled with bike rides, walks, and some quality time. Before long, it was time to move on to our next destination across the country.

Nashville nonsense

Just a hop and a skip from our Knoxville campground later, we arrived in Nashville. We've been to Nashville a few times before, so we didn't feel like we needed to visit the main downtown (ask Rose about that next time you see her). However, we did have some plans while we were in town.

The campground was very nice. It sat right on a lake and had tons of paved driveways for skootz. I almost crashed only a few times! The campsite itself was just a short walk from the lake. We spent some time wading in the water, but we saw a slithery friend a couple times, which turned us off from the lake for a while... We still did a bit of canoeing, though. We felt safer sitting on top of the water rather than in it.​

Where the "tribulations" come in was the day we arrived in Nashville. We wanted to do a bit of internet surfing, so we turned on our unlimited hotspot that we've used for over a year to get internet our travels. This time, instead of giving us unlimited high-speed internet, it said the SIM card was no longer active. 

Of course, this all happened on the Friday before Memorial Day, so all our emails (which was the only way to get ahold of the internet company) landed on deaf ears. We had to work Monday, so now we had to figure out this internet situation before the work week started. 

The solution ended up being upgrading our phone plans (and buying a new Verizon phone plan) to give us enough mobile hotspot data to survive for the rest of the trip. It wasn't ideal, but it worked.

On Tuesday, the internet company did get back to us and said they had a dispute with AT&T (the carrier) and they no longer work together. Instead of telling us this before we left on a cross-country trip, they decided to let us find out the hard way. We definitely appreciated it... They offered to swap us to their Verizon service (for an additional $30 per month, of course), but we opted to just cancel and use our phones from now on. It just means we won't be able to stream Netflix in the trailer anymore, but I think we'll survive looking at the amazing scenery. What a way to start the trip! 

Despite the internet craziness, we still had a lot of fun in Nashville. We even got to meet up with an old co-worker of Rose's from the Speedway for a few drinks. It was nice to catch up — and I got to try a delicious old fashioned during happy hour!

Before we left Tennessee to our next state on the trip, I did manage to snag some great sunrise drone footage over the campsite.